THE TORRES FAMILY’S STORY

Bring Glenda Home – Part 1

“The Lord watch between thee and me while we are absent one from the other.”

— The Mizpah Prayer, Genesis 31:49

 

Last August, Waterbury resident Miguel Torres and his two children, Nathaly (11) and Keneth (7) – all of whom are U.S. citizens – were forced to watch helplessly as Glenda Cardenas Caballero, their wife and mother, was taken from them by ICE, placed on an airplane and deported to Honduras.

  • Glenda had been in the US since 2005.
  • She had complied with all of ICE’s directives.
  • Her case was under appeal in the court system.

Despite following all of our country’s rules and regulations, ICE agents deported her suddenly and arbitrarily in front of her children and husband, leaving her family bereft and heartbroken.

The city to which she was deported, San Pedro Sula, is considered the most violent city in the world outside of a war zone. In December, the house where she is living with her mother was strafed with bullets; then, the very next day, she had a gun held to her head and was robbed of her money and her phone on the street.

Our goal is to bring Glenda home to her family in the U.S. while her case continues to wind its way through the appeals process.

  • We are working to get Glenda into a safe, protected space so her husband and children won’t be worried sick about her health and safety.
  • We are building a case for a humanitarian parole – an exception the State Department can grant that will allow her to return to her family while her case is under appeal.
  • We are building a community of love and support for Miguel, Nathaly and Keneth that they can lean on, when the emotional toll is too much to bear.

We center our humanitarian efforts to help the Torres family in a story from the Book of Genesis, where two family members once built a cairn called a Mizpah to symbolize a peace they established after resolving a bitter dispute.

  • As they parted company, they said words that have become known in Hebrew and Christian beliefs as the Mizpah prayer: “The Lord watch between thee and me while we are absent one from the other.”
  • The meaning of the words has evolved over time to symbolize an unbreakable emotional bond between people who have been painfully separated, and the cairn has become symbolic of a place of sanctuary where people meet during emergencies.

You can follow our efforts to bring Glenda home here on our web page and on Facebook.

Donations to help the family can be sent to FCCOL.  Please make checks out to FCCOL, write “Immigration Assistance Fund” on the comment line and mail to 2 Ferry Road, Old Lyme, CT 06371.   Contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.

 

 

News

The latest news and information on the Torres family appears below:

  • 01-25-19, Lymeline.com – “Old Lyme Church Seeks Return of Waterbury Resident to Husband, Two Young Children”
  • 01-24-19, Lymes Patch – “Old Lyme Church Assists Family with Immigrant Deportation Case”
  • 10-19-18, NPR– “’They’ve Destroyed My Family’: The Story of a Mother’s Last-Minute Deportation”

 

 

 

 

Sermons

Sermons describing our support for the Torres family appear below:

  • 01-13-19, “Live at the Mizpah Café.”

 

 

 

 

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